The Gold Princess
by willowshantesa
Summary: Orla grows up isolated from everything and everyone. On her seventh birthday, even more. If she could only get that nasty temper under control! Its bound to bring tragedy... or something else? Set some 11 years before the original story.


**AN: I own everything you don't recognize. I don't own everything you do. *Sigh* As this is my first fanfiction, please excuse and point out any silly error. Also, feel free to criticise me.**

Prologue

I was born an autumn evening. The sky was orange, the tree outside our house was orange and my mothers dress was orange.

I am quite happy to say that my name is not orange. I only just escaped, actually. By the hairs on my head, that were very small. Tiny, even.

Thank my aunts for that. When my mother, looking at me, said, "I have half a mind to call her Orange." my twin aunts, speaking as one, retorted, "You have promised to name her Orla, Miranda. Surely you are not going back on your word?" And mother said, "Oh no, of course not."

So that's that. My name is Orla. My name means gold-princess. And names, most times, have a hold on people. I am a perfect example. When I was younger my eyes were the darkest brown imaginable and my hair was a blond so light that it was almost white. Know, at eighteen years, my hair was once described as "millions of gold spun locks that curl around her face and cascade down her back" and my eyes…there the weirdest of all eyes. I had watched over the years as gold slowly took over, but the progress had only finished a few days ago. I had been washing my face in the stream, and when the water settled I almost fell in.

I know that if people saw those eyes, so unnatural, I would never be left alone. I would hate that.

For I am not a person who likes company. Some people I could stand and a few people I liked, outside my family circle.

My mother, Miranda, was sweet and kind-hearted. She was a librarian in the cities enormous library and quite a scholar. For the first seven years of my life I barely saw her, as she rose with the dawn and came home at dusk. In those years all I remember is her telling me stores till I fell asleep. Angela, my oldest twin aunt, was an herbalist. She used the downstairs as her shop. She made me laugh and taught me jokes and rhymes. She was always full of knowledge and wisdom. She is forever my favourite aunt. Evangeline was the youngest of my twin aunts. Whilst mother was away and Angela busy serving costumers, she would be my mother. She taught me all the things a mother teaches her child. Every lesson I learn, every word she explained to me was added to my endless memory, stored up to use later. And I began to read books. My knowledge increased and soon I was as academic as my mother. But I didn't stop there. I began to write a journal. Every day I recorded, in excruciating detail. I recorded Angela's jokes and rhymes, Evangeline's recipes and mothers' bedtime stories.

My seventh birthday came. Seven is a magical number. Every sorcerer does something magical on that day, which marks him or her as different types of sorcerers, depending on the type of "thing" they do.

My birthday was like any other. In my family, we eat the cake, receive the presents and thank the gods were still alive, at dusk.

And, normally, the cake is baked around mid-day.

So after finishing the chores that had been assigned to me that morning by Evangeline, I walked into the kitchen, hoping id be able to lick whatever cake mix Evangeline had used for my cake, one of the pleasures of birthdays.

But it wasn't going to happen. For when I entered the kitchen I was greeted- no that's not right- _ assaulted_ by both my twin aunts, Evangeline saying "What would you prefer, Orla, a vanilla cake in the shape of a leaf?" And Angela going "Or a chocolate cake in the shape of a tree?" And, giving me no time at all to respond, they went into a rant how their twins' idea for a cake was much worse than theirs and bla bla bla…. I had stopped listening. Fitting back the urge to yell at them took all my energy. I was only seven at that time and I knew better than to contradict two very angry women.

But the more I contained my anger, the stronger it became.

And it became pain.

I knelled on the ground, a tear slid down my cheek.

And I gave up. "Stop it!" I wailed, but the harm was already done. I needed release, or I felt as if would burst. My aunts looked down at me in horror and shook, wondering what on earth they had done.

I needed to do something, fast. I didn't know what it was and how to do it, all I new is that I _had_ to.

And then suddenly my vision went gold. For a number of second all I saw was gold. And then I saw it was a golden mist. The mist began to take shape. And I found myself face to face with a see-through golden thing that looked a lot like me. But she was older, and she was entirely gold.

Nobody moved when she bent down and whispered in my ear "I am you. You are I. We are one. We will see each other in the future, and if you want the people that you love to live, then defend me man that I stand next to, whatever the cost." And with a laugh at my bemused face, she was gone.

I was shaken. I was so shaken that my anger (that had not disappeared) found a way out. A word that I don't remember escaped my lips.

There was a load pop. And my aunts, who were blinking and gasping in astonishment, suddenly went very pale. They were staring at my feet like they had suddenly sprouted mushrooms. Golden mist whirled around and up my waist. "Here is a gift for you, until we meet again." The voice that was and wasn't me whispered.

And then the mist began to clear.

**AN: I will leave you here. It looks like the perfect place to stop. I might not be able to update it as much as I would want, though. See (Or read. Hum… no that's not right ether. Do you have any idea what would?) you soon!**


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